Live from NCS Wrestling: Day One

Well everyone, action is progressing nicely here at Newark Memorial High today as the North Coast Section individual championships kick off. I’ll be tossing updates onto this post, so just refresh every now and then for some updated info. Can’t guarantee how often I’ll update (I’m flying solo today), but I’ll give ya what I got.

9:30 p.m.: Alright everyone, I’m heading home. I’ll get the quarterfinal results up when I get there, hopefully. See ya tomorrow!

6:30 p.m.: Heavyweights are congregating in the bullpen for the consolation round, so we’re getting close to quarterfinal action. I’ll try to post quarters results here before I leave the gym tonight.

6:20 p.m: A couple observations as the crowd begins to thin here at Newark Memorial. There have been a couple of upsets, most notably Liberty’s Cody Krimm pinning De La Salle’s Curtis Siegfried at 145 pounds. Krimm won his next match and wrestles Matthew Tsarnas in the quarters tonight. Also, Granada’s Joey Wolfson pinned Liberty’s Nico Serrano at 130 pounds. There have been a couple of lower seeds who have gone down, but I’d have to think those are really the most notable upsets so far today.

6 p.m.: Alright, since I made you wait, here are the quarterfinal matchups.

5:25 p.m.: Sorry for the long delay. Had to hammer out a notebook for tomorrow’s paper. I’m still on my perch atop the gym here at Newark, and just watched De La Salle’s Dylan Wynn pin his opponent to reach the 285-pound quarterfinals. Wynn is nowhere near 285 pounds, but he’s so athletic it doesn’t seem to matter. If he makes tomorrow’s semi, he could be dangerous. In other news, action is wrapping up in the current championship round. We’ll go with a round of consolation matches and then the quarters should start in a while. I’m hoping they’ll start around 6:30, but it’ll probably be closer to 7.

4:20 p.m.: Well, Laursen lost a close 9-6 decision to Pittsburg’s Frank Ferrante, but he actually didn’t wrestle too poorly. I spoke with Josh after the match and he says that while he still has some pain in his neck, he’s pushing through it to compete. Gotta hand it to the kid, if you’d asked me last Saturday if he’d wrestle today, I’d have said no way.

3:35 p.m.: The Newark Memorial folk have let me take a spot upstairs with the video crew, so now we’re really cookin. I can see everything! Seriously though, BIG BIG BIG props to the NM guys for letting me snake a spot.

2:55 p.m.: Good news! Just spoke with the Livermore coaching staff and Josh Laursen, who was injured in the 145-pound final at the EBAL Championships last week, is wrestling today and won his first match. He’s got the No. 8 seed, Pittsburg’s Frank Ferrante, coming up pretty soon.

2:50 p.m.: Alright, first things first. I’m never going to understand why the North Coast Section doesn’t encourage the media to cover this event. Every year we get stuck at a table on the competition floor where we can’t see anything. It really doesn’t do much to scream “cover this event”… Alright, that’s my rant. Back to action.